Homeland Insecurity?

From the WSJ:

Homeland Security as Backwater?

Here's an interesting point about the Eliot Spitzer scandal, which we noted yesterday: One of the aides to New York's governor who was implicated in the improper use of state police to gather material for a smear campaign against state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno was William Howard, Spitzer's assistant secretary for homeland security.

Readers may remember that three years ago, New Jersey's Gov. Jim McGreevey declared himself a "gay American" and confessed to an affair with a male aide, whom the media described as his "homeland security czar." (The ex-aide, Golan Cipel, denies the affair, accuses McGreevey of sexual harassment, and says "czar" overstates his role, which was to act "as a liaison between the governor's office and the various state agencies responsible for law enforcement and homeland security.")

Homeland security is the common thread linking these two very different scandals, both involving Democratic administrations in states that were among the hardest hit by 9/11. Democrats tend to talk a lot about homeland security, because by and large they aren't wild about either military or intelligence operations. But this at least makes us wonder if they take homeland security all that seriously either.

It may be that this is a bipartisan problem, as evidenced by President Bush's abortive nomination of Bernard Kerik as secretary of homeland security. On the other hand, Kerik had held a serious homeland-security-related post, police commissioner of New York City. Then again, he served there under the man who is now the Republican front-runner for president.

Is homeland security a dumping ground for dubious political characters? It's a question worth pondering.